Sunanda Pushkar: Police rapped for not de-sealing hotel suite

New Delhi:  The city police today again came under fire from a Delhi court for not complying with its order to de-seal a five-star hotel suite where Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in 2014.

Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmender Singh said the hotel room should have been opened by today and directed the Joint Commissioner of the Delhi Police to appear before the court and explain why the order has not been complied with.

The court made the observations after the police filed a report stating that the results from the forensic laboratories were still awaited and some more time be given to it. “Do you (police) want to initiate proceedings against yourself? I have already passed an order. You think of legal consequences. It can’t go on like this,” the judge said.

The court also directed the police to file a list containing the names of members of its special investigating team probing the case. While the South Delhi hotel has been urging the court to direct the police to de-seal the room which was sealed for investigation soon after Pushkar was found dead on January 17, 2014, the court has also been directing the police to do so on a few occasions.

Hours after Pushkar was found dead, the suite was sealed that night itself for investigation. An FIR was registered by Delhi police on January 1, 2015 against unknown persons under IPC section 302 (murder). The police was on September 12 directed to de-seal the suite and file a compliance report by today. In this order, the court had noted that a huge financial loss has already been caused to the hotel. It had then allowed the police to take all articles from the room required for its probe.

On that day, a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) had pleaded that the room should be de-sealed only after the forensic report, which was dismissed by the court. The court had on September 4 too taken the police to task for its “lethargic attitude” in its probe into the case and had summoned the DCP to explain why more time should be granted for de-sealing the suite.

Similarly on August 19, the court had pulled up the agency for delaying the de-sealing of the room and referred to a court order passed on July 21 asking it to de-seal the occupied premises within four weeks from then.